FTA:
Out of the dozen or more people involved in the incident, only four were charged with felonies.
Norton and Torres’ attorneys pled for lighter sentencing, saying that two other defendants, Thomas Charles Summers and Lacey Paul Henderson II, had pled guilty to terroristic threat and battery charges and received lighter sentences than Norton and Torres were facing. Summers, is serving 4 years in prison and Henderson is serving two.
Real conversation I once bore witness to in university:
“Hey, I never see [name] anymore.”
“Do you think it’s because he’s Jewish and you’re an anti-semite?”
“Oh, yeah, I guess.”
That guy definitely kind of slipped away. Maybe if some of us had been committed to rehabilitating him he might have taken a better path, but, for fuck’s sake, he was our peer, not our kid.
Of course in reality, never considering that you might be a bad person is probably a good indicator of being a bad person*.
* Real conversation with my then 3-year-old:
Of course by that logic, it is equally true that everybody is a bad person…
As I said, “Everyone is a good person” was not quite right, but close enough for a 3-year-old. I’d like her to think “It’s wrong to categorize people as good or bad and we should recognize everyone does good and bad things.” “Everyone is a good person but we all make mistakes” is a rung below that. But “Everyone else is a good person and I’m a bad person” was the thinking I was trying to counter, and that’s right off the bottom of the ladder.
This issue is a perfect example of group think. I tell people all the time, this day and age racist people are hard to find, its the institutions, policies, laws etc. that have been set up by racists long ago. But when you get a group of idiots who have absolutely NO POWER, but they have perceived power (flags, guns, gangs, etc.) the weak will follow. That’s why this internet thingy (social media) is so Powerful (NOT) because of trolls, fake news, and the idiots that believe it and spread its gospel; without thinking of the consequences.
(it takes power to be a racist, because that’s who creates laws, policy, institutions) These hate groups aren’t racist, they are bullys picking on the weak that happen to be in their area. Which is why you don’t see Klans running wild on the southside of Chicago or in Brooklyn or any other densely populated place. Stop giving these idiots a voice and lets tackle the real racism in this country…condo association rules! “wadaya mean I can grill on my own deck!”
There are a lot of people in this world who need to be taught this lesson. The reaction to the sentencing - “that wasn’t me” - shows that this lesson wasn’t learned by the defendants here.
I mean, I’m going to sound like a rightwing lunatic, but if there is a crisis of morality in the United States, what you’re looking at here is that crisis in action.
I want to see this from the next comics bad guy on screen, immediately after killing someone. “I’m sorry, THAT was not me.”
This would seem to assume that everyone wants to be a good person, or at least not be a bad person. Surely there are some bad people who want to be bad people and thus think of themselves as the villain of their own narrative?
I’m not so sure. Depends if they decide to start living their life more according to who they supposedly think they really are.
I’ve done stupid things, and sometimes the self-reflection goes like “that’s not me, I shouldn’t behave that way. I’m better than that.”
Deadpool
I’d suggest that most people want to be, and/or think that they are, good. I’m certain there is a non-zero number of people who know they are in the wrong and/or actually want to be evil, but I also think there’s a number larger than that who simply don’t care what other people think of them, nor how other people feel. (I guess that’s sociopathy?) But I also believe there is some overlap between the latter group and those who want to be good, e.g. “I’m trying to do what’s right, it’s everyone else who seems to turn against me for some reason.”
Agreed. I think most people who do bad things want to believe they’re good and will spare no contortion of logic in rationalize their behavior. It’s just the no one thinks of themselves as the villain trope that sightly bugs the pedant in me 
Apologies for multiple edits. Grammar is my nemesis.
I was surprised that her black facebook friends hadn’t removed her, especially if they were not close. Though I imagine that sort of thing can be chalked up to people just not recognizing or noticing that someone they are only tenuously connected to has done something pretty horrible.
I thought that perhaps i shouldn’t be surprised because it was reported at the time that even Dylann Roof, the perpetrator of the church shooting mentioned in the article, had a number black facebook friends.
Probably not. They will likely never change, or if they do change, they will quickly change back. Inertia and bad habits are hard to break.
Also, this requires them to put some stock into figuring out 1) who they actually are and 2) who they want to be. These do not seem to be the types of people who could or even would do that, at least not in their current state.
I’ve done stupid things, and I’ve done things that were totally uncharacteristic of me, but I’ve never lost track of who I am as a person. For example, I’ve never gone from a calm, well-adjusted person with no beef with anyone to a raving racist lunatic because I had a few drinks in me and was in the company of the wrong people.
Their “current state” has changed rather drastically. Uncontrollable blubbering sometimes comes from a place of profound emotional realization. Who knows?
In prison they might end up in a white supremacist gang, or they might find Jesus and peace and love. Or they might not change at all. I don’t see how any of this is for us to say. They’ve been (IMO justly) judged for their crime, not sure why people are putting so much effort into judging who they will be in the future.
Fair enough. I’m just pointing out that turning one’s life around takes work and introspection, and few are willing to do either.
I don’t know for a fact that neither of these two people will be able to turn their lives around, but the odds are not good for either one of them.
I can see what you’re saying, but I’m perhaps less optimistic.
From my perspective, saying “that’s not me” looks like a method of not accepting blame. I don’t do those things, I don’t deserve punishment, I am a good person, I did nothing wrong.
So I already don’t behave that way. There’s nothing for me to change. I’m already a good person, that other person - who wasn’t me - is the bad person.
There’s a problem in that framing device - that people can be separated into “good” and “bad” and that you are either one or the other. If it’s not you, then YOU are still a good person, you just have another bad person that sometimes takes over I guess? But that person is still bad and they’re not you.
I don’t know these peoples’ minds, so maybe there’s more nuance there than their words would indicate. But there’s a material difference to me between “that’s not me,” and “I shouldn’t behave that way.” A real, meaty distinction between “I am a good person” and “I try to be a good person.”
Anecdotal and off topic.
Sorry, I just quit reading after that point.
Just stumbled across this…
